This blog is posted from a now retired 33 year CAW (now UNIFOR) member. The purpose of this blog is to allow others to see the perspective of the average worker, rather than the views of the Union Leadership If you have any concerns or comments on this blog, contact me at Email:paulsblues45@hotmail.com
On Twitter: @PaulinAjax

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Such Wise Advice From The Prime Minister of Canada.

"I think there's probably a lot of great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as a consequence of all this panicDuring an interview with Peter Mansbridge on the CBC on Oct. 7, 2008, prime minister Stephen Harper suggested that the sudden drop in equity prices represented a good chance for Canadians to buy stock at a discount. all opposition leaders ridiculed the PM's comments. Perhaps they should have taken the advice. For example finance critic John Mcallum could have invested some money and bought a brand new Chevrolet with his windfall.

Now the market will have some up and down days to be sure, but it does appear that the PMknew what he was talking about, the opposition parties, err, not so much. You can track it here:

Paul, do you get the notion that canadians who vote liberals do not mind what happened to their E.I, millions of dollars not returned yet, support for terrorist groups; etc etc.Yet are all over the prime minister for attending to areas where their own liberals neglected failed to attend too e.g.Infrastructure, health, military, education, provinces.

No Prime Minister or President should be giving financial advice. It was boneheaded and wrong then and it would be now.

In addition, totally elitist and arrogant: if you are one of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people without a job, maybe the same people Harper said "are not worried about their jobs", what money do you have to buy up stock? But the media gave him a total free pass on this. Like most things until very very recently.

As for "no one was getting it right": sorry, Paul, lots and lots of people were more or less getting it right. Despite what Harper and Flaherty try to tell us, most economists were predicting a severe economic downturn, at least a recession, by September 2008, as noted poignantly here. Formal Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan even warned, in the spring of 2008, that we were heading into a second great depression by the end of the year.

So it is certainly true that some got it way off, but everybody and anybody who was working in business and not merely a TV pundit "economist" or a self-described politician "economist" knew we were heading into, not just difficult times, but seriously troubled recessionary waters.

Lots of politicians got it wrong, absolutely. Lots of pundits too. I don't even blame the Conservatives for the recession or even underestimating the recession. But watch the video I linked to and you'll beging to understand why so many Canadians are quickly losing trust with Harper and Flaherty. Flaherty baldfaced lies to the senate by saying "no one - and I mean no one, not one economist - predicted this". How he can get away with that, how the media can again let the Conservatives off the hook for this kind of lie is really beyond my comprehension.

But the truth is slowly sinking in with Canadians as they realize that the Conservatives have no clue what they are doing and are truly making it up as they go along.

The market may go up but the U.S. currency will be worth less and less.

However PM Harper did say in his New Year's eve interview and in several newspaper interviews at that time that there was a need for belt tightening and that we were due for bumpy times ahead. The Liberals and N.D.P. just said he was being negative and didn't want to spend money on the environment.

Sure Michael, most people would be pissed witha 10% return on their investments in such a short time.

Sorry Ted, the PM is an economist, and spoke the truth. That's no more eltist and arrogant than Iggy reminding us of his Harvard pedigree, or how many books he has written. What the PM was trying to do was calm the markets. The more people ditched investments, the faster the market dropped. Now that people are re-investing, the market is once again heading in the right direction.

And Ted, I've already shown both Ontario and Quebec were way off on their projections as well, and in some cases had to change them just weeks or months later. I plan to do more provinces in the next few days.

Economists just last August were pedicting Canada would end up with a $5 billion surplus.

Spend more to prop up Ontario, Spend more to prop up the arts, Spend more on Carbon offsets to meet unrealistic and man made goals on the GHG myth, spend more to pay down our national debt, spend more to provide better EI coverage, Spend more to prop up provincial jursidiction health care, Spend more to subsidize senior CPP...

With all this added spending, unlike Liberal Gov't of the past who had Free Trade tax money, our EI...correction UI supliments to balance budgets, and rising resourse revinews which increased annually over the 15 years or more they were in power, not to mention the weakest Canadian dollar in our history which encouraged forigen investment in the form of capital and resourse sales...just what the F(*&^ do these bleeding liberals expect for budget over runs... They wanted the 40 billion to bail out the failnig auto industry...50 billion over given that 40 billions a bail out plan doesn't sound all that bad...

It's not like Harper has a 150 million dollar slush fund in sponcership money to pull from or 2 billion in gun registry dollars that could have been better spent, any of the money dumped on PET mega projects from the 70's and 80's that made us borrow 100 billion to get out of trouble which has since grown to a trillion spent on interest alone and 600 billion in debt...

And as for the comments regarding the politicians failing to recognise the down turn was coming how niave are you.... the fastest way to creat a run on the banks and to crash a market is for the leader of the free world or even just the leader of Canada to come out and say that the economy is going to crash and people are going to lose their jobs... and it's even more assinine for the media and opposition to jump that shark because it's all 20/20 hind sight and you can't publish this unless you want it to be self fulfilling...inteligent people recognise this and the economists who were predicting it are the type who like to hear their own voices in media sound bites...

Smart economists already took their investors money out of the market quietly back over a year and a half ago like Jimmy Pattison who sold off millions in realistate in the Vancouver market peak and have since reinvested it now that demand is once again out striping supply in the BC market but building costs have declined back to realistic costs and not over inflated as they were 2 years ago between labour and supply's

"However PM Harper did say in his New Year's eve interview and in several newspaper interviews at that time that there was a need for belt tightening and that we were due for bumpy times ahead. The Liberals and N.D.P. just said he was being negative and didn't want to spend money on the environment."Not in September 2008, not in November 2008 and not even in December 2008 did Harper say that or the opposition parties respond that way.

What I really really don't get about Conservatives who use that December 2007 statement from Harper to say 'see, he actually does know what he is talking about' is the following:1. Once all of his actual projections and budgets and fiscal updates were shown to be worthless, he himself says that no one predicted the recession. If Harper predicted this, was he lying then?2. If Harper was so prescient then, why was he saying later in 2008 that we would not go into a recession and never have a deficit? Was he just guessing in 2007? or is his judgement or leadership so bad over those few months? or was he just so desperate to cling to power that he was lying during the election and the few months afterward?

the fastest way to creat a run on the banks and to crash a market is for the leader of the free world or even just the leader of Canada to come out and say that the economy is going to crash and people are going to lose their jobs...

it's even more assinine for the media and opposition to jump that shark because it's all based on 20/20 hind sight and you can't publish this type of information on a gov't level or as a leader of any country in advance unless you want it to be self fulfilling

If Harper had said publically that people were going to lose their jobs raising unemployment in canada dangerously close to double digits, the market is going to crash, and the economy is going to be screwed up for the next 2 years because Bill Clinton arranged for the banks in the USA to give Credit to non-credit worthy people you'd have been crusifying him over speaking the truth...

You go anon...Ted's got a limited view of the world and it's from drinking too much Red Koolaid at the conventions and listening to too many other Liberals spout off the same old tired mantra their parents did before them...

Study's show that over 70% of Liberals vote liberal because they've always voted liberal...

80% of Conservative voters vote Conservative because they believe in what they do and try to do what they say they will do.

"We will Cut the GST by 2% over the next 2 years" comes to mind vs "axe da tax"

Sorry Ted, the PM is an economistSorry, Paul, he is not. He can call himself that all he wants but that doesn't make it so. I wrote a paper in economics once too, that does not make me an economist and I wrote mine even more recently than he did. He has not worked a single day as an economist and he has never published a paper or written a book as an economist. If Harper is an economist then we are all economists.

and spoke the truth.Well sure, if at different points in time you predict every possible outcome - "no recession", "recession", "mild recession", "severe recession", "cyclical downturn", "depression"... then you are bound to be right at least once. Harper is making it up as he goes, Paul.

That's no more eltist and arrogant than Iggy reminding us of his Harvard pedigree, or how many books he has written.Well, first of all, when has Ignatieff reminded anyone of his Harvard pedigree or how many books he has written? Seriously.

Second of all, Harper's statemetn is way more arrogant. It rubs financial elitism in the face of those who can't afford it, who don't have a job or are worried about their jobs, and who don't have the kind of money Harper is talking about to spend. Harper was talking about us and what we should be doing, telling us how we should behave. What you claim Iggy to have said, if he said it, would have been just about the events in his own past.

What the PM was trying to do was calm the markets.No, what he was trying to do was to get people to vote for him so he could stay in power. He knew he was already headed toward a deficit, but said we would never have a deficit. He knew most economists were predicting a severe recession, but said Canada would not go into a recession. He lied his ass off, deflected, evaded, whatever it took to get re-elected.

Now that people are re-investing, the market is once again heading in the right direction.I'm sorry - and this really is not a partisan comment - but that is not why the market is slightly up from 6 months ago. Look at the volumes. Prices have gone up so the market is up but it is up because investors have factored in the bad news of tomorrow or think some have over-estimated the bad news.

And Ted, I've already shown both Ontario and Quebec were way off on their projections as well, and in some cases had to change them just weeks or months later.Like I said myself, lots of politicians got it wrong. But I would hope that the Prime Minister of Canada was not relying on the economic predictions of other politicians! No, my statement was clear: Harper and Flaherty said that no one saw this coming which is another flat out, brazen, bald-faced, utter lie. It is unbelievable that they still try to spin that and that supporters try to spin that storyline and the media just continue to regurgitate it.

Economists just last August were pedicting Canada would end up with a $5 billion surplus.This is the other part of the game Harper plays: blurring the line between predictions about the economy based on data available to everyone vs. predictions about the budget based on the governments own decisions and numbers.

Almost every single economist was predicting a recession to a severe recession or even a depression by September when Harper was telling us Canada would not go into a recession.

But a budget is part economics and part political decision-making. If the government says we only spent W last year, we will only spend X this year, we will cut Y in spending this year and we will sell of Z worth of assets this year... AND our internal numbers on inflation and GDP - which you the public don't have yet - say all of our numbers and predictions are sound... AND THEN it turns out that W, X, Y and Z were fantasies and the inflation numbers and GDP were as well (once we see the basis for the calculations)... AND THEN find out what the Conservatives left out of the budget altogether... well, of course, outside analysis of Harper's deficit will not be accurate. There are simply too many assumptions based entirely upon Harper's information and decision-making for them ever to be accurate.

Anonymous said June 2, 2009 10:06:00 AM PDT time he said Canada would have no deficits. Boy, did he miss the boat on that one.

Please think before making your comment, if the PMSH had have managed to do what he wanted, there would have be cuts to government spending: example elimination of tax payer dollars going to support political parties.

But the opposition parties decided to band together to protect the interest, not you or me. Plus the deficit spending was something that the PMSH was forced to do because of the opposition who still yell and scream for more spending.

Ted; you seem to like to quote PMSH and his supposed mistakes, remember the Governor of the Bank of Canada wa saying that by the summer the economy would start to turn around and also the PM was saying the same thing. If you take a look at the TSX and S&P index you will notice that Canada's economy has started to improve and should continue to get better into the 3rd quarter of 2009. I put more trust in PMSH an economist than I do in Ignatieff or Layton or Duceppe.

But Dion said the Liberals won't run a deficit, and he therefore couldn't commit to anything for Marine Atlantic until he was sure the country could afford it.

Dion said budget surpluses would be invested into infrastructure such as new vessels for Marine Atlantic, and those new ferries would have to be more fuel-efficient than the ones operating now - something he said will keep costs down for passengers."

Btw, if the same philosophy exists for someone NOT working in their field professionally being unqualified, then it should also apply to your hero,Ted.My next line would be very sarcastic so I will just leave it there, huh?

Ted,your a blithering idiot.Most countries are taking Canada,s advise and PM Harpers advise.The Canadian economy,no thanks to you lib retards is recovering very well without the input of any of the opposition parties and all the negativity from the sky is falling MSM.You are GD lucky you live in Canada under the leadership of PM Harper. & not some idiot liberal.So get down on your knees and beg a conservative for forgiveness for your lack of knowledge about anything to do with the economy.You Libs are determined to put us all into poverty ,but PM Harper is making fools out of all of you and he is putting the boots to the MSM as well.You can spout all your idiotic statements about the economy, but Canadians just laugh and shake their heads and say where have we heard that crap before.MUST BE Another LIBERAL IDIOT.

Treb: Harper has been spending like an out of control drunken sailor from the moment he took office, and it is the Liberals that are driving us into poverty? Each and every one of Harper's budgets have increased manyfold, and it is the Liberals who are driving us into poverty?

Harper himself has admitted our banking system and the strength of our economy put us in a better situation than others. Those were established by Liberals, bud. As noted by this astute conservative blogger, the economic successes of Canada right now are due to the Liberal Party.

I wouldn't go so far as to say Harper is the worst PM in our history, but there is no question he is pretty useless and is now desperately clinging to power.

In a Minority gov't money bills are about the only thing that will force an election...something not one Canadian, especially the Liberal party of Canada who are both monitarily and morally bankrupt...they simply can't afford it but Harpers caught between 3 lefty's and doing what's right... If he were to cut anywhere that any of the 3 amigo's want funding it's a trigger for the next general election... unfortunately Leftards don't understand that there "golden goose" is paid for by their tax dollars and that money doesn't simply grow on trees or in slush funds...

Ted, your trolling points don't carry any weight.You ignore all the relevant arguments only to go on and on about who said what rather then what is actually done about the issue itself.

Much the same, the Liberal's "talking points" are argumentative.And never really work to addressing the issues.They just want to hear everyone else's.Rarely do you hear them come up with their own.Which is growingly the case with each year that passes.

I prefer Deficits that stimulate the economy with the known aim of making money in the long term, than Surpluses that STEAL from EI while robbing Taxpayers of the right to spend their own money. While essentially accomplishing what exactly? over consecutive majorities of Liberal rule.

The Conservatives have accomplish more positive action on every file before even being in government for a FULL-4-YEAR-TERM; than anything any one within the last string of Liberal majorities.

In order for the deficit to begin to matter it would have to exceed the amount of which they used to previously pay down the debt. Since, by them doing so, they had saved money that they would of been paying extra interest on accumulatively between now and the time when the had done so.

Until it exceeds that amount (which it will due to factors beyond their control) it is still considered part of the intended stimulus (excluding cost over runs if any come into play) and not deficit shortfall. That isn't the case when it comes to stimulus that adds to a structural deficit.

The current federal deficit shortfall isn't from cost over runs or program expenditures, its from the contraction in the economy.

Here is a list:

Lower consumer confidence in the last quarter of 08, thus lower GST revenue than intended or expected.The Trade deficit.Lower corporate tax revenues due to private sector losses.Lower income tax revenues due to lower employment levels.Higher EI payment outs due to layoffs.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out but I can't think to what that could be at the moment... substantial enough of a list as it is to excuse the Federal budget of any shortfall accumulated so far.

I didn't bother to work in how the fluctuations of the dollar come into play or the changes in commodities. For example, look how that has effect Alberta.

Trash talking our PM and Minister of Fiance doesn't make you an economist... Or opinionated. Just loud.

You don't have to have "work" experience to be an economist. Economics is a branch of knowledge based around the production, consumption and transfer of wealth. "Work experience" is not a prerequisite, since one can project the out come in their mind through calculating the consequences.

Economists don't need to write books, they need to be able to read markets, comprehend the effects and counter effects of the mathematical projections in their heads at to how they are applied. Understanding that what they add or subtract over here can create a ripple that effects things over there.

When thinking up an economic policy, all things are to be considered, tallied, and applied to the environment they were intended for.

Cutting the GST was good for aiding consumer confidence and large sale items such as a car or a new home. Notably offsetting some of the negative effects of what was happening south of the border well enough in advance.

If Ted was more economically inclined he would of read the budget and found plenty of reasons to be very pleased with our country's finances.

Especially with all things considered.

If there was a specific issue he had with it other than his superficial rage over the deficits or the GM loans (which any of the leftist parties wouldn't of let fail anyway) worth being in such a near-constant tizzy over they I would suppose he would make mention of it to the appropriate minister that corresponds to that issue.

Trust me when I say we are in good hands.I'll even go as far as to predict that surpluses will return years sooner than anticipated. Thats me saying that. Ahead of the curve perusal.Canada is not going through a depression, but a transition.

This isn't 1990. Tech and research is continually advancing regardless of the markets or the global recession. Not everyone has been set back or even know anyone personally who has been adversely affected, as dire as the situation truly is for others.The world doesn't stop turning and neither does ideas. Especially so given the advent of both globalization and the internet and its constant interexchange of useful information.No FUD factory could get well enough in the way of the constant adaptation of progress.Ultimately, in the end, fact trumps fiction just as truth exposes lies.

So often is the case against the Federal/Ontario Liberals... and they can't run away from it forever.

"Almost every single economist was predicting a recession to a severe recession or even a depression by September when Harper was telling us Canada would not go into a recession." -Ted

Canada WAS NOT heading for recession due to its own causes. That right there is all that is relevant.Since no matter WHO or WHICH party was in government Federally, they were still going to suffer a deficit. Had the Liberals managed to remain in government, a feat which would of required much continued crookedness and face saving tactics that the CBC would of helped prop up; THERE WOULD STILL BE A DEFICIT.

Regardless of the recession, The Ontario Liberals were already slipping into have-not status from their own actions/inactions to not only improve but to prepare the Ontario economy for this. Despite having two majorities and plenty of growing revenue room since taking power to make a difference without having to raise any taxes whatever-so-ever for any reason.

They would of had to govern even further to the Right of the conservatives to achieve that which the Liberals wouldn't of done since they are too populist and govern too heavily based on polls or the "blind will of the people". (or what ever the ill temperate mood they happened to be in over a single non-issue)

Tell me, if your so concerned with deficits, what would you or the "infallible" Liberals of done differently?

"But the truth is slowly sinking in with Canadians as they realize that the Liberals have no clue what they are doing and are truly making it up as they go along." -Ted

You'll be okay someday Ted, Just keep taking those pills as was suggested.